Bettendorf attorney considering run for Congress

A Bettendorf attorney said Thursday he is exploring a potential
bid for the Republican nomination for Congress in Iowa’s 2nd
District.

John Archer, 39, a senior legal counsel at Deere & Co., said
no formal announcement will come until the first part of July.

He’s been talking with Republicans in the district, however, and
in an interview Thursday, he listed the budget and the economy as
prime concerns.

With two young children, he said, “I’m extremely concerned for
their future.”

The Quad-Cities is the largest urban center for the new 2nd
District, a 24-county district that will include Clinton and Scott
counties in 2012.

U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, the three-term Democrat from Mount
Vernon, already has said he’ll seek re-election in the
district.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, a Waterloo Democrat who currently
represents the Quad-Cities, has said he’ll seek re-election in the
1st District.

Nomination papers can’t be filed for the 2012 primary until
February. But Republicans think they can make a run at the
district, particularly because parts of it, including the
Quad-Cities, are new to Loebsack. Archer may not be the only person
to seek the GOP nomination, either. There have been rumors at least
one other person might be interested in a bid.

Archer said solving the budget problem will require putting
“everything” on the table.

That could include Medicare, he said.

“We need to find a way to work together to fix Medicare without
hurting those individuals who are currently reliant on it,” he
said.

Medicare has become a hot topic since House Republicans passed a
budget resolution earlier this year proposing the program go to a
voucher-like system in which the government would give seniors a
premium support payment to buy health insurance in the private
market. The program wouldn’t affect people who are now 55 and
older.

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Asked whether he would support the plan, Archer said he needed
to give it more study.

Archer did say he thinks lowering taxes on corporations is a key
to creating jobs in the 2nd District, parts of which have some of
the state’s highest unemployment rates.

He notes some corporations have millions of dollars in profits
overseas that should be brought back to the U.S. to invest in job
creation here. He also said the country needs a national energy
policy that includes on- and off-shore drilling, as well as nuclear
power and renewable fuels.

Archer currently is on the Pleasant Valley School Board, having
been elected in 2009.

Born and raised in Springfield, Ill., he once clerked for a
state Supreme Court justice. He just recently earned an MBA from
the University of Iowa. Archer is married with two children.